


bleedwood

by thedevilchicken



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Getting Together, M/M, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23539279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: They always go back to the forest.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 9
Kudos: 103
Collections: Robot Rainbow 2020





	bleedwood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yujacheong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujacheong/gifts).



They always go back to the forest. 

Anakin's not sure how many times it had happened before he realized it had happened before, but he knows how many times it's been since then. He wishes he didn't, but he does. He wishes he could just stop counting, but he can't. He thinks one day he might, but he's not sure what that will mean; likely not anything good.

When they arrived on Talosia IV, the mission still seemed straightforward: meet the council's contact in the village, follow their directions to the temple, and retrieve the artifact. It _seemed_ straightforward, but the fact is he still doesn't know what the artifact was - in all the times they've been there, they've never actually found it. Maybe it's not there. Maybe it never was, or someone else had gotten there before them, but he guesses that doesn't matter now. The artifact they were sent for is not in the temple, but they still keep looking. 

"Those are some strange trees," he remembers saying, more than once, while Obi-Wan was fetching their supplies from the transport ship's small cargo bay. These days, these times, it's more of a compulsion than the off-the-cuff remark it likely was the first time, and what he means by it is different. Either way, the trees are strange.

"Yes, the bleedwood trees are very strange," their contact agreed. "Our legends tell that if one carves their lover's name into the bark, they will always come back to them."

It seemed less ominous at the time, so much less ominous that Anakin forgot about it until they were deep inside the forest. It was six full days' hike to the temple, and the tangle of tall, twisted trees was impossible to penetrate except on foot. Not only that but Talosia was in its dark season, five weeks during which the system's planets aligned in such a way that Talosia II blocked out the sun; they trekked through the smooth trees that sprang up from the seemingly barren earth by the light of a couple of headlamps, relying on the Force so that they wouldn't trip. 

The issue was relying on the Force wasn't actually reliable. The forest was old; legend said it was as old as the planet, legend said it was as old as the galaxy itself, and the Force was everywhere within it, as tangled and twisted as the trees were themselves. 

On the fourth night, Anakin kept watch, and he turned their contact's words over in his head through sheer force of boredom: _if one carves their lover's name in the bark, they will always come back to them_. Obi-Wan wasn't his lover, no, but he was the closest thing he had to one. Obi-Wan wasn't his lover but that didn't mean he didn't want that with him. So he flicked open his pocket knife, one he carried for emergencies, and he did what legend told them: he carved _Obi-Wan Kenobi_ into the bark of the bleedwood tree. 

He could see the sap on his hands by the light from his headlamp and he understood the name right then because it looked like nothing in the galaxy as much as blood. He wiped it off on his tunic and it stained; he remembers the frown on Obi-Wan's face when he saw it and thought maybe he'd cut himself, and he'd had to explain the blood wasn't even blood, let alone _his_ blood. Then the frown seemed to turn more about poking holes in local flora than it was about concern, and the trek continued amidst a lecture. Anakin wondered why he'd even bothered doing it - Obi-Wan _really_ wasn't his lover, in spite of everything he wanted, in spite of everything they'd almost done but never had. He still acted more like his master than that. 

For years, Anakin forgot about the trees. He forgot about the forest and the sap, at least after he'd sheepishly handed his stained tunic to the cleaning droids who, if any droid could look dismayed, absolutely looked dismayed. He forgot about the hours upon hours of searching the deserted temple for some vague old artifact that a holocron had barely described, something so powerful that it could bridge the void between life and death. They moved on. The war went on. Padmé. Palpatine. Mustafar. Twenty years of rage. A moment's hope. 

And then, the forest. They always go back to the forest.

He's lived so many lives now that he should have lost count some time ago. He hasn't. He remembers some of them, fragments, mistakes he made, orders he followed, lies he told and friends he betrayed. He remembers the temple in the forest, underneath the canopy of strange white branches that tangle like a net around its ragged stone walls. The trees had grown through it, breaking stone and tumbling walls, and Anakin couldn't see how they'd built there in the first place, not when the trees were so damned hard even their lightsabers wouldn't cut them. He remembers déjà vu, the sense he'd been there before, the sense he'd done this and he knew the outcome. 

After Talosia, though, after the mission, that feeling starts to fade away. He's made the same mistakes so many times because of that. And now they're here again. 

Obi-Wan's asleep, wrapped up in his cloak by the stones they've heated with their lightsabers to keep them warm in the freezing dark. The trees don't burn, their contact told them, and it turned out he was right - the trees don't burn. Only the first inch cuts. They're the strangest trees he's ever known and Obi-Wan's sleeping there with his back to a smooth white root, calm and peaceful, unaware. So unaware.

Anakin goes to him. He kneels at his side and he shakes him by the shoulder, just enough to wake him. Obi-Wan frowns but he's concerned again, not angry. 

"What is it, Anakin?" he asks, and he sits himself up. 

Anakin answers him with a kiss, because that's all that he can think to do. But when Obi-Wan pulls back, inevitably, dreadfully, what he says isn't disapproving like he thought he'd be. He's not outraged. He's not disgusted or alarmed. What he says is, "Why now?"

Anakin laughs. "Why _not_ now?" he replies. But what he means is, _so I can have this before I forget again_.

It's been so many times now that he's tired, worn thin, like the branches of the bleedwood trees, old as the galaxy itself. And he understands what the legend says is more like a curse than a promise. 

They always come back to the forest. And every time they do, he makes a choice. They've been here so many times that every tree they pass could bear the same name, but it only takes one to do the trick. 

Obi-Wan looks at him from so close by that his familiar eyes are almost out of focus. His fingers tighten at Anakin's cloak and when he leans back, when he pulls him down, when they kiss again and he turns, when he pushes Anakin down flat against the forest floor, he doesn't see the blood that's on his hands. Not blood, but it might as well be.

But maybe, he thinks, it's worth it to have this forever.


End file.
